Pain Power Passion
by purplefeen
Summary: When Spike comes to Sunnydale, he senses a powerful force - but it's not Buffy.
1. Chapter 1

**Part 1**

' _ **Spike Thoughts'**_

 _Episode: "School Hard"_  
 _Scene: Bronze – dancing_

The Bronze is filled with students having a good time. High school students, college students. Everyone taking a break from academia. Letting go. The band is hot; the music is loud. The place is mostly dark; only a few swirling lights picking up scenes of laughter, flirting, drinking, and dancing. Everyone is having a good time. Trying to forget that they live in Sunnydale. On the Hellmouth.

Spike walks through, watching three teenagers dance. His interest is centered on the blonde girl, watching how she moves, watching her face. _'Pain. Power. Passion. Flowing from the dance floor in waves. Washing over me. There's never been a slayer like this. I'll never defeat her. She must have a weak spot. Maybe she can't fight – can't dance. Find the weak spot.'_

Spike finds his new minion and gives an order. "Go get something to eat."

 _Scene: Bronze – exterior – alley. That same night._

Buffy is fighting at top form. She's graceful, powerful. No unnecessary movements. She's holding him off until the boy returns with a stake. _'She can dance. She can fight. She can move. She has more style than the others.'_

With a stake at last in her hand, Buffy can see that the vampire is afraid. He asks someone for help, but no one comes to the rescue. The fight ends with bursting ashes and Spike can't help himself, he applauds.

"Nice work, luv."

Buffy looks up, confused. "Who are you?"

"You'll find out on Saturday."

"What happens on Saturday?"

"I kill you." Spike walks to the mouth of the alley and smiles. _'The pain, the power, the passion – they weren't hers.'_

 _Episode: "Halloween"_  
 _Scene: A suburban neighborhood in Sunnydale._

Spike stops running and leans back against a tall oak tree. He slides down the trunk, sits on the roots, and tries to get comfortable.

' _Why can't I just KILL her? Her bloody friends, the poof, all protecting her, helping her, making her think she's stronger than she really is.'_

He pulls out his cigarettes and lighter. The lighter brings the angles of his face into relief as he lights the cigarette. _'All I need is one good-'_

As the light flickers, he looks up and sees a girl. Black miniskirt, long legs, crop top, red hair, beautiful neck. . . .

"Who is that girl?"

' _She's not human',_ he realizes _. 'Not a demon. Not a vamp - - no energy, nothing. I can't feel anything from her, no fear, no joy. It's like she's not real. But she is, I can see her . . .'_

He wishes she would turn around. But she has no consciousness, nothing for his mind to reach out and touch, nothing to make her do his will. And just wishing doesn't make it so. He watches her walk down the street, disappearing around a corner.

When he returns to the factory, Drusilla can tell something happened. Her Spike isn't hers anymore. But she doesn't know why. Spike blames his distraction on his defeat at the hands of the slayer and her friends. But Drusilla knows better.

And Spike can see it.

' _Dru. I devoted my entire unlife to her. The perfect creature of the night. Beautiful, ethereal, playful, vicious when she's up to full strength. Innocent, in a way, because of the insanity. She's pure. She does everything with her whole being. She's perfect. Why isn't that enough any more?'_

That night Spike makes love to Drusilla. Soft, slow, burning. But for the first time in one hundred twenty years, he closes his eyes. It isn't his princess's eyes he wants to see. He is fantasizing about a nymph in a black miniskirt. A perfect female non-entity, with a switch in her step. Even if he couldn't feel her, he knows she's special. That she will be special – to him. Her future is wrapped up in his. He doesn't know how – or when – after all, he'll live forever; but eventually, the fates will bring them together.

He imagines her while he touches Drusilla. Her doesn't know her face, couldn't see her eyes. But with shining copper hair piled on her head, revealing a long beautiful neck that he wanted to do things to that had nothing to do with biting.

' _Although biting would be good, too.'_

Spike comes harder than he has in decades.

And Drusilla fell asleep a long time later, whimpering and calling for her Daddy. But Spike didn't hear a thing. Exhausted, he fell asleep right after he came, without even a thought to cuddling first.

 _ **A year later**_

 _Episode: "Lover's Walk"_  
 _Scene: A magic shop._

The store owner, a small woman with a peaceful demeanor, is trying to reason with an frustrated Spike in the back of the store. He's searching among the bookshelves, looking for something she doesn't carry. She only deals in white magicks, she says.

He pleads, "A curse! Y'know, something nasty. Boils. I wanna give him boils all over his face. You know, dripping pustules. Let's really go for the gusto here."

The shopkeeper frowns. "I'm hearing a lot of negative energy, and I bet…"

He tries again, "Leprosy, all right? A spell that makes his parts fall off. That sounds proper."

She's getting tired of this. "We don't carry –"

The door chimes. "Would you excuse me a moment?' Spike isn't really paying any attention to her and goes back to searching the spell book without noticing she has wandered off. Then he feels it. He thought, after a while, that maybe he had imagined it before, but here it is again. Crashing into him. _'Pain. Power. Passion'_.

 _Scene: The factory._

Willow is afraid. She's trying to get a grip on the situation to help her get out of here.

' _Spike! Oh, goddess, Spike! And he's drunk!? Okay, okay. What does Spike want with me? Oh yeah, a spell. I can do a spell. What spell? I forget. Stall. Maybe if I give him what he wants, he'll just let me go. And I have this lovely bridge I want to sell you . . .'_

Spike knows she's afraid. He doesn't care. He knows she's powerful. Even if she doesn't. She can do this spell, she could do any spell ever conceived if she had a little training. But she doesn't know that. She doesn't know she has power. So she's afraid. Spike plays on that fear; he'll use that power for his own purposes. "Mm. That smell… Your neck…" He leans in to inhale her.

' _Her neck… No! This can't be the one.'_ That one was a phantom, not real. The one in front of him is real, human. But he knew her. Had dreamed of her, would never forget that Halloween night. He brings forth the demon just to calm his mind. "I haven't had a woman in weeks."

Willow jumps up. "Whoa. No! Hold it."

' _A minute ago she was terrified, now she's giving orders. Pain. Power. Passion. She's starting to feel it. But does she know what it is?'_

He pretends he wasn't listening to see if her courage will hold. "Well, unless you count that shop keeper."

Willow decides that if she's going to die today, she's going to go out fighting. She's tired of being a scared little mouse. "Now, now, hold on! I'll do your spell for you. And… and… and I'll get you Drusilla back, but… but, there will be no bottle-in-the-face, and there will be no 'having' of any kind with me. Alright?"

' _Show me the power that's inside you, luv.'_

He grabs her … hears her heart race, feels her overwhelming fear. He shifts back to human features. _'She feels it, but she's not ready. Not yet.'_

"Alright. Get started."

' _Not today, probably not this year. But she's starting to sense it. What she's capable of. But it's frightening. I know, I've been there. You can feel it, smell it, taste it. But you're afraid if you reach out to touch it, it might disappear. Or eat you alive. I have time, I'll wait. I'll come back when she's ready. When she wants it. And the second - the second - that happens, you know I'll be there. I'll slip in…'_


	2. Chapter 2

' _ **Willow Thoughts'**_

 _Scene: The morning after Lover's Walk_

The sun is shining, birds are singing. The warmth comes through Willow's french doors and hit the bed, making the yellow bedspread glow. All seems right with the world. You'd never guess the hell that the small girl asleep in the bed went through yesterday. She sleeps so peacefully, a small smile on her lips. Se is so innocent looking, with exquisite features and glorious, flame-colored hair. The sun plays with the color, some strands more orange, some more auburn. When Willow wakes up the morning after being kidnapped, there's an envelope on the floor just inside her balcony door. She examines the cream-colored parchment paper and old-fashioned black writing. Just "Willow" written on the front. Curious, but wary - you have to be wary living on the Hellmouth - she opens it and reads:

 _You don't know who you are yet. Who you can be._  
 _But I do, I've known since the first time I saw you._  
 _I belong to you. When you're ready, you'll belong to me._  
 _You're worth the wait._

There is so signature.

' _Who? Not Xander. Oz? It doesn't sound like him.'_

"You don't know who you are yet. Who you can be," she recites as she rereads the note.

' _Yes, I do,' she thinks. 'I know who I are. I are – I am… computer girl, and research girl, and homework girl. I get straight A's. I'm Buffy and Xander's best friend. I'm…Who am I? Who can I be?'_ she wonders. Is there something about herself that she doesn't know? Good? Evil?

"But I do, I've known since the first time I saw you," she recites again.

' _Xander was five when he first saw me and I was crying about a yellow crayon. He had no idea who I was going be. And Oz, when did he first see me? In school I guess, but he still doesn't really know me yet. Who…?'_

"I belong to you."

' _Someone belongs to me? Does that mean I'm responsible for them? Like a puppy? I like puppies.'_ Why does her mind always wander off on these tangents? That's one thing already about herself that she doesn't know.

"When you're ready, you'll belong to me."

' _I don't even want to try to figure that one out.'_

"You're worth the wait."

' _I am, I am worth the wait! Aren't I? I don't know. But why wait? Wait for what? Why not now? Am I worth the wait? Let's wait and see. Let's not. Huh? Now I'm confused._ Now _I'm confused? Face it, girl, you were confused way before now.'_

She turns the note over and looks at the blank other side. And then turns it over again. She looks at the envelope, but there are no clues there, either.

' _Who is this from? No signature, I don't recognize the handwriting. I guess I'll have to wait, and I'm worth the wait.'_ She giggles.

Willow takes the card and carefully slides it back into the envelope. She opens her closet and pulls a wood box with an engraved top off of the shelf. As she traces the carved willow tree with her fingers, she remembers buying this box with money she had saved up from birthdays, chores, and holidays. Opening it, she pulls everything out. The pictures of her and Xander. A picture of Xander and Jesse. The pictures of her, Buffy and Xander. The Polaroid she had taken of Giles when no one was looking. The first A she ever got in every class she ever took. A wedding picture of her parents. A letter from a pen pal in Kansas that she wrote to in 5th grade. A ribbon that she had worn in her hair in a cousin's wedding when she was 6. Lots of things she wants to keep forever. She lays the parchment envelope in the bottom of the box and replaces the other items. Places it back on the shelf and closes the closet door. She leans back against the closet door and spends a moment reveling in the fact that she has a secret admirer.

' _Who'd a thunk it? Me, geeky Willow Rosenberg, I have a secret admirer.'_

' _I belong to you.'_ Willow smiles and gets dressed.

' _I'll wait…'_


End file.
